


In my nature, in my blood

by alchemise



Category: Glittering Cloud - Imogen Heap (Song)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Murder, Mutants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-08 03:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14685111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemise/pseuds/alchemise
Summary: "As she watched him die, she felt only ecstasy."





	In my nature, in my blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Edonohana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/gifts).



> Thank you to Prinz for the beta!

**94 days without an accident!**

Syl laughed bitterly when she saw the sign. From her untrained eye, the construction site looked dodgy as hell: there were gigantic cranes, tons of heavy machinery, and even a sign warning of explosives. Yet they'd still managed more than three months without someone being hurt.

She didn't have to do any calculations to figure out her own number: 4 days without an accident. That was it.

Four days now of sleeping in alleyways, only moving around at night, avoiding all contact with other people. Four days of absolute isolation. Or as close as she could come in a city of millions. Crossing the street at the first sign of another human being (if she even was that any longer), turning around and walking in the other direction if someone dared to address her.

Four days since the last incident. A homeless man wondering if she—seemingly a like-minded itinerant—could spare some food. He'd touched her arm, pleadingly. Syl had known he wasn't a threat. She hadn't really wanted to hurt him. But she had felt _it_ swelling within her, then inevitably bursting forth. For her, there was only enrapturing joy at letting loose, a euphoria that swept her away. That he seemed to share, in the end…

 _No._ She shook her head to clear the memories. Remembering these things accomplished nothing. She squeezed her eyes shut angrily against the images—the rapture on his face as he'd died, enveloped in the…

A noise of agony and rage burst from her lips. The memories were getting harder to block out, the feelings of losing control and their faces... None of it was fair. She was doing the best she could!

She'd left her entire life behind. Her job, her friends, her home: they all seemed a million miles away. The first one to fall had been a shy woman—Ani—she'd been on a first date with. It was raining when they'd left the restaurant they'd met at (Florencia's? Capanella? Soletelli? Some bullshit fake Italian place she couldn't quite remember), and there were no taxis in sight. Syl had been bored with the date by then, no spark between them; Ani was rather timid, and Syl wanted someone who would meet her head-on. Syl had pulled out her phone to request a ride service, when Ani had done her first forceful thing that evening—pulling Syl into a deep-set doorway and meeting her mouth with a passionate kiss. Syl figured she'd go for it and make the most of a dull evening, as she reached up and wrapped her hands around the side of Ani's face to keep them locked in their embrace. As her hands touched Ani's face, she felt it for the first time. Coming out of her, from everywhere and nowhere at once. And the feeling that came with it… not sexual, not that kind of pleasure. Something different from every other kind of good feeling she'd ever had. Ani was gone moments later.

That had been three weeks ago. Three weeks of increasingly avoiding people, while wandering the city and wondering at what had become of her life. She still had no idea why it had all started with Ani; there had been nothing special about her at all.

Syl continued walking with her head lowered, not wanting to even look at another person; all they brought her was death. She was going nowhere in particular, not paying attention until the sharp blare of a car horn broke through her thoughts. The headlights—glaring and harsh—blinded her as the car swerved around her at the last second.

She was standing in the middle of the road.

A wave of sound and light came crashing down upon her. Cars sped by, many honking as they went, drivers shouting at her to move out of the way. People pointed and stared at the fool in the street. Those who noticed her, at least. Most went about their business, stumbling out of bars, walking hand-in-hand, talking, laughing. The rest staring down at the phones, the light reflecting onto their faces and making them look washed out. Neon signs screamed the names of a variety of intoxicants. Music blasted. Shops selling endless pointless products used garish displays of lights and screens and signs to draw the eye and make people desire what was inside. Billboards flashed overhead, more stupid things that once upon a time had mattered to her and now seemed hollow.

All of it was overwhelming and alien to her; she wasn't a part of this world any more. She felt like screaming again. She wanted to run away, back to the quiet corners of the city where she could at least pretend she was alone. But then one sign caught her eye. A giant screen far above her changed: from promising how the latest pair of headphones would improve your productivity by blocking out all the nonsense of life to giving an update on the local news.

It was a story of missing people. An unusual wave over the past few weeks, of successful, middle class professionals (clearly no one had bothered to notice the missing homeless man) who had all disappeared. Her own name was among them. The others she recognized as her… victims.

There had been a few after Ani: a doctor she'd hoped could help her (he hadn't), a storekeeper who'd taken issue with her disheveled appearance and tried to throw her out (judgmental asshole), the cop who'd foolishly tried to arrest her afterwards (when she'd done nothing wrong), a handful of others who just wouldn't leave her alone. The newscaster warned of danger, suspicion of some violent criminal stalking those who weren't supposed to be prey. The people she used to consider herself one of.

Syl looked around, wondering if anyone recognized her from the picture that had just been displayed 20 feet high, in high definition, right above them. No one even looked at her any more. She could see it was deliberate, a conscious ignoring of the crazy woman in the middle of the street. ("I'm sorry she was hit, officer. Of course I would've helped her if I'd seen her, but you know how it is. There's just too many distractions; we never notice those who need our help.")

Syl sneered at them and their stupid, careless lives. She idly wondered what it would feel like if she could control _it_. If she could touch them all at once. The sheer joy was already nearly indescribable when she touched one person; if she could reach dozens at the same time… It was an engrossing thought that she continued to mull over as walked out of the street and down one of the alleyways she'd started to think of as hers.

A fog rolled in, tendrils of murky grey forming in her peripheral vision, slowly filling the world around her. She looked up and realized she could only see a few feet in front of her. Everything beyond now hidden behind clouds. There were lights, blurred and nebulous: streetlights, lamps in windows, the occasional car's head and taillights, those damn billboards advertising all the detritus of modern life high up above. All softened by the fog now.

There was no horror in these clouds. They wouldn't bite.

It felt like peace. No death, no anger, just water vapor and stillness. Syl was so entranced by the calm she felt in this heavy, opaque air that she didn't notice the man approaching her, until they were nearly upon each other.

The man gave a startled "Oh!" as he came within inches of running into her. Her eyes widened with surprise as the peace she'd felt shattered from his intrusion, and she shrank back. Her expression must have been a startling sight, because the man reached out with a comforting gesture, wanting to reassure, to apologize for the fright he'd caused. He looked so kind right then—the two of them surrounded by fog, alone on a deserted street. A happenstance meeting. Just a bit of bad luck.

His hand brushed her arm.

It was no longer fog he was surrounded by, but a cloud of a different kind. Something shone within, glittering and sharp, but she could never make it out. As though it wasn't for her to see. His eyes widened in awe, and he turned his hands up in supplication. To what, she would never know.

As she watched him die, she felt only ecstasy. It burned through her veins, an overwhelming intensity of sensation, as the cloud—no, she—consumed him.

The cloud dissipated and returned to her. She watched the last of it dance over her hands, shimmering, before it sank back into her. She eyed the wisps of clothing scattered on the ground—all that remained of the man.

He shouldn't have touched her. It was his own fault. What kind of a fool would just touch a stranger like that?

Syl was annoyed as she walked deeper into the fog, her previous pleasant feelings broken by how irritating other people could be. She may have enjoyed what had happened, but it hadn't been on her own terms. Whatever it was she now possessed was dictating her life. She loved every time it emerged but hated the loss of control she felt.

The shape of a woman suddenly appeared before her, flickering and rainbow-hued. She was so close, Syl suspected she'd seen everything that had just taken place.

"We can help you," the woman said, the steel in her voice at odds with the nebulousness of her form. Behind her, half a dozen more formed out of the fog. One whose skin looked like bark, rough and cracked. One who hovered half a foot above the ground. One with spines growing out of their skin, only a hint of a face hidden behind razor-tipped spikes.

A part of her thought they looked cursed. Another wondered how dangerous they were, what powers they held behind their abnormal guises.

Then the woman spoke again, her form gaining some solidity as her words became more forceful. "You're one of us. You're not alone. What you've been through, we can help you. Come with us. No one will touch you; you'll be safe. We'll teach you. Control. So that this is power you wield instead of power that rules you. Would you like that?"

Syl's eyes filled with tears at the thought: _control_ , _power_. She could have these things. A world of possibilities opened before her, as her lips curled back from her teeth in a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking of this as basically a supervillain origin story. What would happen if an average, kind-of-shitty person gained incredibly powerful and deadly abilities that they really enjoyed using?


End file.
